Palm Beach Charity Extends To Afghanistan

November 5, 1985|By Fred Lowery, Staff Writer

It is a long way from the sunny shores of Palm Beach to the rugged, war-torn mountains of Afghanistan, but the generosity of Palm Beach County residents earlier this year has made that distance considerably shorter.

Some $10,000 has been collected to start a clinic in Afghanistan, the outgrowth of a drive to collect boots for Afghans battling an army from the Soviet Union that invaded their country nearly six years ago.

And according to Dick Williams, the Palm Beacher who headed the fund-raising effort, the Palm Beach Clinic today has become a godsend to Afghans wounded in battle and afflicted with illness in the bleak back country, as well as a thorn in the side of the Soviets.

``The Palm Beach Clinic is becoming very symbolic. This was the first commitment by any community in the United States to any humanitarian project in Afghanistan,`` Williams said. ``I hope it will become an example for other communities to follow suit.``

Williams said the clinic has attracted the interest of groups in Houston, Portland, Ore., and Waldorf, Md., which have launched fund drives of their own.

Williams said that in the first month of operation, the one doctor and two male nurses staffing the clinic treated 682 patients.

Within a week after the clinic opened, he said, the area was taken by the Soviets, but the Mujahadeen, as the Afghans are called, lost no food or medical supplies, all of which were secreted in mountain caves that went undetected.

The clinic continues to operate from a cave in the mountains, apparently impervious to regular Soviet bombings, Williams said.

Although Williams would not be specific about the clinic`s location -- ``It is one day`s walk from Kabul, the capital, and two day`s walk from Pakistan`` -- he said it is located ``at a crossroad for the Mujahadeen.``

Supporters of the clinic have enough funds left to assure its continued operation for another three months, Williams said, and hope to get some government funds to assist with the operation after that. It costs about $3,000 a month to operate, he said.

While the Afghans are in desperate need of help, they want that help in the form of supplies or financial assistance to obtain supplies, Wiliams said.